Flagg Quotes & Sayings

Yes, I suffer terribly from depression. I have to work at being happy, it's not my natural instinct. My natural instinct is, if something wonderful happens, to throw water in my own face. — Fannie Flagg

The food in the South is as important as food anywhere because it defines a person's culture. — Fannie Flagg

By the way, Boots died and Opal says she hopes you're satisfied. — Fannie Flagg

All those calm, adult discussions. When all she really wanted to do was scream for her momma, her sweet momma, the one person in the world who loved her better than anyone ever would or ever could. — Fannie Flagg

...Rejoice for a comrade deceased,
Our loss is his infinite gain,
A soul out of prison released,
And free from its bodily chain."
~Smokey Lonesome — Fannie Flagg

a small few actually able to do those things of which men whisper - these few could call demons and the dead, could kill with a curse or heal with strange potions. One of these men had been a creature the gunslinger believed to be a demon himself, a creature that pretended to be a man and called itself Flagg. He had seen him only briefly, and that had been near the end, as chaos and the final crash approached his land. Hot on his heels had come two young men who looked desperate and yet grim, men named Dennis and Thomas. These three had crossed only a tiny part of what had been a confused and confusing time in the gunslinger's life, but he would never forget seeing Flagg change a man who had irritated him into a howling dog. He remembered that well enough. — Stephen King

In 1945, when the male soldiers started coming back home from Europe, she and all the other women pilots that had served as WASPs during the war were unceremoniously told to go home and never received a dime or even thanks from the government. — Fannie Flagg

The little girl knew if she bit any member of her family, they would get rabies too, and she died without ever having been petted. I cried so hard Mrs. Underwood had to take me to the school nurse. — Fannie Flagg

But you soon find out they don't want to meet you, they want you to meet them. — Fannie Flagg

I just know there's an albino living in the colored quarters. I can feel it in my bones. — Fannie Flagg

raging across Europe. Every night, families sat glued to the radio, listening to the news of Poland. Most still had relatives — Fannie Flagg

After the boy at the supermarket had called her those names, Evelyn Couch had felt violated. Raped by words. Stripped of Everything. — Fannie Flagg

Well, they are trying to get rid of Christianity and once they do that, then you watch. Our taxes will go up and they'll take all our guns away and the next thing you know, a communist or a socialist will get in the White House and then it will be all over. — Fannie Flagg

I'm telling you, Dena, when you live long enough to see your children begin to look at you with different eyes, and you can look at them not as your children, but as people, it's worth getting older with all the creaks and wrinkles. — Fannie Flagg

To Toot One's Own Horn Is Unattractive. — Fannie Flagg

I wonder how many people don't get the one they want, but end up with the one they're supposed to be with. — Fannie Flagg

Shake the hand that shook the world. — Stephen King

Her daughter had given her a puff of a marijuana cigarette once, but after all the hot pads on the counter started walking toward her, she got scared and never tried it again. So dope was out. — Fannie Flagg

Your mother formed an incorrect opinion of you and, naturally, you agreed with her. Children always think their parents are right. But in this case, your mother was entirely wrong. Think about it. Your mother is an overpowering individual, — Fannie Flagg

The line between the public life and the private life has been erased, due to the rapid decline of manners and courtesy. There is a certain crudeness and crassness that has suddenly become accepted behavior, even desirable. — Fannie Flagg

I thought I was going to die right there on the spot. I've never heard anything so terrible in my whole life. I hope she is wrong and I never get a period. I am eleven years old and entirely too young to hear about it. Can you imagine my mother not knowing what Kotex are for and dusting the house with them? Well, her mother can just tell her what they are for. I'm not getting into the facts of life. I haven't heard one fact of life I like yet. — Fannie Flagg

Face it girls. I'm older and I have more insurance. — Fannie Flagg

Joined the singing too, and when it was done and the applause rolled out once more, he was crying a bit himself. Rita was gone. Alice Underwood was gone. New York was gone. America was gone. Even if they could defeat Randall Flagg, whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams. — Stephen King

When she finally was able to order a martini, the first sip nearly knocked her head off. It was so strong. And how surprised she was that scotch tasted more like iodine than butterscotch candy. Two of the great disappointments in her life. — Fannie Flagg

Those Russkies won't put up with your whining and bellyaching for one second. I believe in freedom and individual rights as well as the next man but nobody has the right to live here and do nothing but run us down. — Fannie Flagg

Dena had always been a loner. She did not feel connected to anything. Or anybody. She felt as if everybody else had come into the world with a set of instructions about how to live and someone had forgotten to give them to her. She had no clue what she was supposed to feel, so she had spent her life faking at being a human being, with no idea how other people felt. What was it like to really love someone? To really fit in or belong somewhere? She was quick, and a good mimic, so she learned at an early age to give the impression of a normal, happy girl, but inside she had always been lonely. — Fannie Flagg

It was the story of her life and probably how she had survived this long: with a little talent and a lot of flair. — Fannie Flagg

You know, a heart can be broken, but it still keeps a-beating just the same. — Fannie Flagg

What was this power, this insidious threat, this invisible gun to her head that controlled her life ... this terror of being called names?
She had stayed a virgin so she wouldn't be called a tramp or a slut; had married so she wouldn't be called an old maid; faked orgasms so she wouldn't be called frigid; had children so she wouldn't be called barren; had not been a feminist because she didn't want to be called queer and a man hater; never nagged or raised her voice so she wouldn't be called a bitch ...
She had done all that and yet, still, this stranger had dragged her into the gutter with the names that men call women when they are angry. — Fannie Flagg

People cain't help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don't you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would. People are just weak. — Fannie Flagg

In her opinion, Alexander Graham Bell and Clarence Birdseye are the two greatest Americans that ever lived excluding Robert E. Lee. She believes we never lost the War Between the States, that General Lee thought General Grant was the butler and just naturally handed him his sword. — Fannie Flagg

Grandma Harper has two green bottles shaped like women with black hair painted on their heads and a yellow glass colored captain's hat that she keeps her face powder in that I want too, and a picture of a naked girl in a swing, swinging way up in the air over castles in a blue sky.
I don't know why I want those things, I just do. — Fannie Flagg

Our car would've burned up too, but Michael, who is only twelve, got in it and backed it away. I climbed in with him and noticed some of my school books in the car, so I took them out and threw them in the fire. I figured it would save me from doing a lot of homework, but unfortunately under the headline in the paper the next day that said HARPER'S MALT SHOP BURNS TO THE GROUND IN TRAGIC FIRE it also said that seen throwing her school books into the fire was little Daisy Fay Harper. Rat's foot! No wonder Hollywood stars hate reporters, and after all that some busybody do-gooder has already bought me a new set of books. — Fannie Flagg

The Black Man grinned at her with his jackal mouth, and his scarlet eyes knew all the secrets of woman-blood. — Stephen King

Oh it don't make no kind of sense. Big ol' ox like Grady won't sit next to a colored child. But he eats eggs- shoot right outta chicken's ass! — Fannie Flagg

I brought a picture with me that I had at home, of a girl in a swing with a castle and pretty blue bubbles in the background, to hang in my room, but that nurse here said the girl was naked from the waist up and not appropriate. You know, I've had that picture for fifty years and I never knew she was naked. If you ask me, I don't think the old men they've got here can see well enough to notice that she's bare-breasted. But, this is a Methodist home, so she's in the closet with my gallstones. — Fannie Flagg

And now i know i'm not myself. how can i ever be myself again? i was never myself in the first place! — Fannie Flagg

They say the truth can set you free, but sometimes it can really depress the hell out of you. — Fannie Flagg

After Elner Shimfissle accidentally poked that wasps' nest up in her fig tree, the last thing she remembered was thinking "Uh-oh. — Fannie Flagg

Nobody was ever really ready to turn off their mother's machine, no matter what they thought; to turn off the light of their childhood and walk away, just as if they were turning out a light and leaving a room. — Fannie Flagg

Churches were shut down and Stanislaw's father and three uncles had been sent to prison camps for speaking out. — Fannie Flagg

Mrs. Threadgoode pulled something out of the Cracker Jack box and all of a sudden her eyes lit up. "Oh Evelyn, look! Here's my prize. It's a little miniature chicken ... just what I like!" and she held it out for her friend to see. — Fannie Flagg

Marriage. Isn't it great? Each time you fall back in love with your [spouse] it gets better and better. — Fannie Flagg

Evelyn stared into the empty ice cream carton and wondered where the smiling girl in the school pictures had gone. — Fannie Flagg

I eat out of stress, she told Robbie, and now, between work and her nephews driving her crazy, she was just on the verge of having to switch from her MEDIUM to her FAT AS A HOG wardrobe again, which meant she was going to have to switch shoe sizes as well. Robbie said she was the only perwon in America who gained weight in her feet. — Fannie Flagg

Every time they have somebody born in the movies, it is a little boy. They never have little girls being born. What makes boys so great and woooonnnderfullll? I can do anything a boy can do — Fannie Flagg

As the doctor said, When a fifty-eight-year-old man goes downtown dressed up in a Dale Evans cowgirl outfit, complete with a skirt with fringe, it's time ... — Fannie Flagg

You think people are some kind of pure, white feathered birds flying in the clouds. They're not. They're pigs and they love to wallow in the mud and dirt. — Fannie Flagg

Do you think that your worrying can prevent anything from happening? Whatever happens is supposed to happen and whatever doesn't, isn't. — Fannie Flagg

If you cage a wild thing, you can be sure it will die, but if you let it run free, nine times out of ten it will run back home. — Fannie Flagg

If you did tell the truth or if you didn't, there were always consequences. Human interaction was difficult at best. — Fannie Flagg

Later on, still looking, she had tried to get involved with the Women's Community Center. She liked what they stood for but secretly wished they would wear just a little lipstick and shave their legs. She had been the only one in the room in full makeup, wearing pantyhose and earrings. She had wanted to belong, but when the woman suggested that next week they bring a mirror so they could all study their vaginas, she never went back. — Fannie Flagg

I believe poor people are good people, except the ones that are mean ... — Fannie Flagg

And her dumplings were so light they would float in the air and you'd have to catch 'em to eat 'em. — Fannie Flagg

Like I say, it just creeps up on you. One day you're young and the next day your bosoms and your chin drops and you're wearing a rubber girdle. But you don't know you're old. — Fannie Flagg

Not long before my mother died, I found a long-lost portrait of Jane Franklin's granddaughter, Jane Flagg, aged nine - oil on canvas - in the basement of a public library not a dozen miles from my mother's house. — Jill Lepore

Hazel always used to say There's not enough darkness in the entire universe to snuff out the light of just one little candle. — Fannie Flagg

Remember, if people talk about you behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead of them. — Fannie Flagg

You may not be the person your mother wants you to be, but you are you. Our job here is to try and separate the wheat from the chaff and figure out who you are and not who your mother thinks you are. — Fannie Flagg

months was ten years. — Fannie Flagg

Claude Pistal is a creep! He is lucky I'm reasonably mild-mannered like Clark Kent. — Fannie Flagg

Being an only child and losing both my parents at an early age, I have found that the friends I have made over the years are the people who help me get through life, good times and bad. — Fannie Flagg

You know, it's funny what you'll miss when you're away from home. Now me, I miss the smell of coffee ... and bacon frying in the morning. — Fannie Flagg

assembly at Piacenza of deputies from a number of — Ernest Flagg Henderson

Women are fools; they will marry anything that has a heartbeat just to have a man. — Fannie Flagg

She had no interest in love. Love had taken her in the back room and beaten her up pretty badly. — Fannie Flagg

As for the end of the universe ... I say let it come as it will, in ice, fire, or darkness. What did the universe ever do for me that I should mind its welfare? — Stephen King

His idea of how the country was doing had been determined by the size of the butts he picked up off the sidewalk. — Fannie Flagg

Regardless of which path you take, if it's truly your path, you'll find your super powers there. You — Chelsea Walker Flagg

And so, as quietly as he had lived, he slipped out of town, leaving only a note behind:
Well, that's that. I'm off, and if you don't believe I'm leaving, just count the days I'm gone. When you hear the phone not ringing, it'll be me that's not calling. Goodbye, old girl, and good luck.
Yours truly,
Earl Adcock
P.S. I'm not deaf. — Fannie Flagg

Are you a politician or does lying just run in your family? — Fannie Flagg

Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead. — Fannie Flagg

All right, then, I'd die for you. How about that? Don't you think somebody could die for love? — Fannie Flagg

Remember, Sookie, nothing says more about a family than good silver and real pearls. The rest is just fluff. — Fannie Flagg

"Have you done your homework?" my mother would ask. "I'll do it later." "You will do it now, young man. I don't want you winding up on the third shift at Flagg-Utica." Flagg-Utica was a local textile plant. Somehow, I never could figure how failing to read three chapters in my geography book about the various sorts of vegetation to be found in a tropical rain forest had anything to do with facing a life as a mill hand. But with enough guilt and fear as catalysts, you can read anything, even geography books and Deuteronomy. — Lewis Grizzard

Wisdom, Power and Goodness meet
In the bounteous field of wheat. — Hannah Flagg Gould

I believe in God, but I don't think you have to go crazy to prove it. — Fannie Flagg

He had mourned each of those great trains as, one by one, they were pulled off the lines and left to rust in some yard, like old aristocrats, fading away; antique relics of times gone by. — Fannie Flagg

Idgie smiled back at her and looked up into the clear blue sky that reflected in her eyes and she was as happy as anybody who is in love in the summertime can be. — Fannie Flagg

It's always the darkest just before the glorious dawn. — Fannie Flagg

Her good weight was 150 pounds, and 178 pounds was her top. Consequently, Brenda had three different sets of clothes hanging in her closet, labeled GOOD, MEDIUM and FAT AS A HOG. — Fannie Flagg

Every woman wants to get married and have children. — Fannie Flagg

as they walked home, and she would — Fannie Flagg

The band did a salute to Stephen Foster and played 'Beautiful Dreamer' and we formed a bed. Then we played 'My Old Kentucky Home' while the majorettes slowly pranced like horses. We finished with 'I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair', we formed a comb. Miss Philpot is running out of ideas if you ask me. — Fannie Flagg

Whom the heart first loves does not know or care if they are related by blood. — Fannie Flagg

Hazel: Listen babe you have to search for your luck it's nice if it just falls in your lap but I look for my lucky pennies ...
Maggie: What do you do with all your pennies
Hazel: I give them away. It's good to spread your luck around and it always comes back to you. — Fannie Flagg

And Lenore had served each child several cups of the Simmons eggnog, which was 75 percent rum and 25 percent nog. When they came to pick the children up, all four were stumbling around her living room in a drunken stupor. — Fannie Flagg

How do you know if you're making the right decision?
Easy. Just like two and two always add up to four, kindness and forgiveness is always right, hate and revenge is always wrong. — Fannie Flagg

When someone old dies, it is even sadder. First you notice that the paper doesn't come anymore, then gradually the lights are turned out, the gas turned off, the house gets locked up, and the yard is no longer kept up, then it goes on the market and new people come in and change everything. Elner — Fannie Flagg

Because any idiot can get married and have children; that's no great accomplishment. — Fannie Flagg

Daddy gave me real useful information to protect me in the real world. If anyone hits me, I'm not to hit them back. I wait until their back is turned, then hit them in the head with a brick. — Fannie Flagg

I found out I got ringworm from Felix. If it gets in my head, they will have to shave off my hair. I'll be bald just like Eisenhower, and I am a Democrat. — Fannie Flagg

It's not even people anymore, it's one big thing you want to control and once you've had a taste of it, you're hooked. It's like if you don't have it you will die, do you know what I mean? Somebody's handed you the baton and you can lead this rich, powerful orchestra. Does that make sense to you? I mean after that, leading a five-piece band means nothing, not after you've led that orchestra, thousands of people all playing the song just like you want them to. — Fannie Flagg

HEY, BOBBY TERRY, YOU SCROOOOWED IT UP! — Stephen King

Mrs. Threadgoode laughed at the thought. Oh honey, I've buried my share, and each one hurt as bad as the last one. And there have been times when I've wondered why the good Lord handed me so many sorrowful burdens, to the point where I thought I just couldn't stand it one more day. But He only gives you what you can handle and no more ... and I'll tell you this: You cain't dwell on sadness, oh, it'll make you sick faster than anything in this world. — Fannie Flagg

Buddy, night and day. We even started calling her Cupid. Idgie was — Fannie Flagg

Hello ... is this Mrs. Fritzi Bevins?'
'Yes, it is.'
'From Pulaski, Wisconsin?'
'Yes.'
'Uh ... you don't know me, but I recently received some papers. From Texas. And, well ... I think I might be your daughter?'
There was a long silence on the other end, and then after a moment, the woman in a softer voice said, 'Hiya, pal. I've been waiting for this call for a long time. — Fannie Flagg

It is difficult to realize how great a part of all that is cheerful and delightful in the recollections of our own life is associated with trees. — Wilson Flagg

But oh, it would just break your heart to see some of them waiting for their visitors. They get their hair all done up on Saturday, and on Sunday morning they get themselves all dressed and ready, and after all that, nobody comes to see them. I feel so bad, but what can you do? Having children is no guarantee that you'll get visitors ... No, it isn't. — Fannie Flagg

Damn, I'm Miss Mississippi! — Fannie Flagg